The Inca

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the people of Cusco, in modern Peru, established an empire along the Andes down to the Pacific under their supreme leader Pachacuti. Before him, their control grew slowly from C13th and was at its peak after him when Pizarro arrived with his Conquistadors and captured their empire for Spain in 1533. The image, above, is of Machu Picchu which was built for emperor Pachacuti as an estate in C15th.

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Guests

• Frank Meddens No other episodes
  Visiting Scholar at the University of Reading
• Helen Cowie No other episodes
  Senior Lecturer in History at the University of York
• Bill Sillar No other episodes
  Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London

Reading list

• The Oxford Handbook of the Incas
  Sonia Alconini and Alan Covey (Oxford University Press, 2018)
• The Incas
  Terence D'Altroy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2003; 2nd edition 2014)
• Ancient Cuzco: Heartland of the Inca
  B. Bauer (University of Texas Press, 2004)
• The Power of the Huacas: Change and Resistance in the Andean World of Colonial Peru
  Claudia Brosseder (Texas University Press, 2014)
• Llama
  Helen Cowie (Reaktion Books, 2017)
• The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492
  Alfred Crosby (Greenwood Press, 1972)
• The Incas
  Nigel Davies (University of Colorado Press, 1995)
• Potato
  Rebecca Earle (Bloomsbury, 2019)
• Monuments of the Incas
  J. Hemming (2nd edition, Little Brown, 2010)
• Inca Settlement Planning
  J. Hyslop (University of Texas Press, 1990)
• Ancient Inca (Case Studies in Early Societies)
  A. L. Kolata (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
• The Last Days of the Incas
  Kim MacQuarrie (Simon and Schuster, 2008)
• Inca Sacred Space: Landscape, Site and Symbol in the Andes
  F.M. Meddens, K. Willis, C. McEwan and N. Branch (eds) (Archetype Publications, 2014)
• The Incas: Lords of the Four Quarters
  Craig Morris and Adriana Von Hagen (Thames and Hudson, 2011)
• The Inka Empire and Its Andean Origins
  Craig Morris and Adriana Von Hagen (Abbeville Press, 1993)
• History of the Inca Realm
  M. Rostworowski de Canseco (Cambridge University Press, 1999)
• The Inka Empire: A Multidisciplinary Approach
  I. Shimada (ed) (University of Texas Press, 2015)
• Huarochiri: An Andean Society Under Inca and Spanish Rule
  Karen Spalding (Stanford University Press, 1984)
• Inka History in Knots: Reading Khipus as Primary Sources
  Gary Urton (University of Texas Press, 2017)

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Programme ID: m0005t68

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005t68

Auto-category: 980 (History of South America)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello. In 1532 Atahualpa became a ruler of the great Inca Empire that was based high in the Andes of South America and spread along the Pacific coast for over 1500 miles.